Thursday, November 10

Tong Poo 2

Tong Poo 1There are a number of versions of Tong Poo available on YouTube, recorded over decades. I can't say for certain who composed the work but from the 1978 video (above), it may well have been improvised during a 'shared piano' duet by music phenom Ryuichi Sakamato and his first wife Akiko Yano, a music phenom in her own right who began playing piano at the age of three. We can see from 1983 clips inserted in the duet video that Tong Poo was eventually fleshed into a YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) techno-pop performance involving more than one type of instrument.By the time the following video was made, in 1993, we can hear from the roar in the audience filling the huge Tokyo Dome that Tong Poo had become a YMO favorite. By then the orchestration for the simple tune had taken on complexity and the depth to support virtuoso performances on instruments other than piano.So one way to refer to Tong Poo is "Artists at work."

"What Julia Child did for French cooking, Pundita is doing for foreign policy discussion. She's opened a haute pursuit to ordinary people." - Caesar Rodriguez

"Few bloggers think as deeply as Pundita does. And few have her foresight." - Uppity Woman

"There is no other blogger like Pundita. She has carved a niche - part history and part humint - that makes any essay of hers a thing unto itself. In addition there are the sparkles of her dry wit sprinkled through her work." - Dymphna, Gates of Vienna